Faces of Farming & Ranching

This project focuses on different venues to share the farmer and rancher voice, through those storytelling opportunities, to better connect consumer food connectors and influencers with farmers and ranchers. The project involves placing the current class of USFRA’s Faces of Farming and Ranching into new and unexpected places.

The Faces of Farming and Ranching (FoFR) program was created to identify and train a pool of farmer/rancher spokespeople to connect with key audiences about how food is grown and raised while also addressing issues such as GMOs, antibiotics, crop inputs and sustainability. In the past, FoFR spokespeople have participated in consumer media desk-side briefings in New York and Los Angeles, Satellite Media Tours (SMT), Tweet Chats, virtual field trips, panel discussions and keynote presentations. The primary goal has been to establish the spokespeople as go-to resources for consumer-facing media. The FoFR represent a diverse group of farming and ranching practices, commodities and geographies. The current “class” of FoFR consists of five individuals who began their role as USFRA spokespeople in January 2017 with their term to end in December 2017.

Core Responsibilities:

Heightened focus on national media opportunities

Proactive and reactive earned media

Ongoing, contributions of content to FoodDialogues.com

Engagement on social media channels, particularly in cases of assertive content posts

Events/speaking opportunities for both consumer and agricultural events

Lauren Arbogast (Virginia)

Lauren farms with her husband Brian and two sons on their diverse operation in Rockingham County, Virginia, consisting of five houses of chickens (broilers), a cow/calf herd of 450, a calf backgrounding site of 400, and crop rotations. Click here to watch Lauren’s video.

Jeremy Brown (Texas)

Jeremy farms with his wife Sarah and three children on their 3,000-acre farm on the South Plains of West Texas, growing cotton, organic cotton, wheat, rye, grain sorghum, peanuts and sesame. Click here to watch Jeremy’s video.

Emily Buck (Ohio)

Emily farms with her husband John and daughter on their 1,000 acres of no-till farmland near Columbus, Ohio in the Lake Erie and the Mississippi River watersheds. They farm corn, soybeans and a flock of 40 Southdown ewes. Click here to watch Emily’s video.

Katie Roth (Wisconsin)

Katie and her husband TJ farm with their partners John and Luann Shea in the southwest corner of America’s Dairyland in Wisconsin. They milk 260 Holsteins and all of their feedstuffs are grown on the farm including corn, soybeans, alfalfa and wheat. Click here to watch Katie’s video.

Lauren Schwab (Ohio)

Lauren works on her 1200-sow breed-to-wean family pig farm in Butler County, Ohio. As the farrowing house manager, she is a week one specialist to ensure all piglets get off to the best start. Click here to watch Lauren’s video.

Darrell Glaser (Texas) – Turkey Farmer

Darrell manages Bar G Ranch, which has been in operation for 80 years. He and his family brood approximately 600,000 turkeys each year and maintain a cow herd that consists of 200 mother cows. The operation is truly a family farm. Darrell’s 71-year-old mother still works on the farm today along with him, his wife and his four sons.

Jay Hill (New Mexico) – Vegetable, Beef & Nut Producer

Jay’s father, Jim Hill, established Hill Farms in 1969. Throughout the 70’s and 80’s, the farm grew slowly while his family lived off a non-agriculture income. As Jay grew up helping with the farm, learning and growing with it, it cultivated his love for the lifestyle. He now farms between 500-700 acres. Jay’s focuses on vegetable production, always aspiring to grow a good tasting, safe product in the most cost effective way.

Thomas Titus (Illinois) – Pig Farmer

Over the last 52 years, Thomas’s 240-acre farmstead has grown to support four families, three full-time employee families and two part-time employees. Thomas primarily manages the operation of Tri Pork, where they market 12,000 pigs annually. With roots in 4-H, Future Farmers of America and youth development, they have 50 sows for show pig production, sale and exhibition. This allows their children to learn the joys of showing livestock and helps them develop character-building values.

Carla Wardin (Michigan) – Dairy Farmer

Carla and her husband Kris, both sixth-generation farmers, are the sole owners of Evergreen Dairy. They recently expanded their herd and now milk a total of 400 cows. They also grow crops to feed their cattle on 850 acres of corn, alfalfa, and pasture. Carla blogs about the farm, goes into the schools to teach about farming, and enjoys giving tours. The couple has three sons – 7-year-old twins and a 3-year-old.

Katie Pratt (Illinois) – Farmer

Katie and her husband Andy (7th generation farmer) raise corn, soybeans and seed corn. Welcoming tour groups to their farm is a family tradition starting back in the early 1970s when Andy’s grandfather hosted students from Chicago-area schools on his dairy farm. They currently farm in partnership with Andy’s family and have two children.

Will Gilmer (Alabama) – Dairy Farmer

Will and his father own/operate a dairy farm in Lamar County, Alabama. The dairy has been in continuous operation since Will’s grandfather established it on his parents’ farm in the early 1950s. They currently milk 200 Holstein cows and raise their own replacement heifers, while managing 600 acres of land used for pasture and forage production. Those forages include hay, summer silage crops, and small grains/ryegrass for both silage and strip grazing.

Bo Stone (North Carolina) – Hog and Crop Farmer

P & S Farms is owned jointly by Bo, his wife Missy, and his parents. They grow 2,300 acres of row crops (corn, wheat and soybeans). They also have six swine finishing floors on contract (approximately 10,000 hogs annually) and have 60 brood cows. They also grow 2.5 acres of strawberries and 4 acres of sweet corn that are sold at their own roadside market. Bo represents the sixth generation to farm some of their land.

Chris Chinn (Missouri) – Hog, Cattle, and Crop Farmer

Chris and her husband Kevin are 5th generation farmers – farming with his parents and brother. They raise hogs, cattle, hay and row crops. It is a 1,500 sow farrow-to-finish farm and it has a 60-head cow-calf operation as well.

Erin Brenneman (Iowa) – Pig Farmer

Born and raised in a suburb of Chicago, Erin Brenneman works alongside her husband, Tim’s, family at Brenneman Pork raising pigs in southeast Iowa. Erin specializes in “Day One Pig Care” and works everyday in the farrowing house where she cares for pregnant sows and helps newborn piglets get a good, healthy start. The Brenneman family also grows 3,000 acres of corn and soybeans each year.